First Night -- Last Caricature Gig of 2015!

On Thursday, December 31, 2015, I participated once again (along with several of my fellow C.L.A.W. members) in doing caricatures for Tacoma's First Night Celebration. It's an annual block party that takes place in downtown Tacoma on the last night of the year. There are live bands, street vendors, food trucks and even a circus of some sort, all set up on a blocked off stretch of Broadway. As has been the case for the last several years, Brooks Dental Studio hosted the CLAW so that we would have a warm and well lit place to ply our cartoony trade!

Here are a few samples of the drawings I cranked out during the evening. My biggest challenge, a six person piece I did for one family! My fellow CLAW members were impressed at how much my speed had improved since last year's event. That is the main thing I have been working on as I have embarked on my caricaturing venture! All my practice and study seems to be paying off! The beneficiary of CLAW's participation is our Student Scholarship Fund!











Speaking of Brooks Dental Studio--although they are primarily a dentist's office, they have a gallery-like space and often hang the work of local artists. The CLAW has art hanging on their walls throughout January, including yours truly. Here's a photo of one of the displays with some of my art. You can see a couple of my Star Trek pieces, my phonebox drawing and the original Mark of Aeacus cover piece. So much thanks to Brooks Dental Studio for being such gracious supporters of The C.L.A.W.!!

May The Holidays Be With You!

It's the time of year when I post my annual Brill/Stockham Household Christmas card! I've been doing these themed Holiday Greetings for a number of years now--in fact, this is the 7th one! I usually try to match the theme to an important event in the year...theatrically speaking. On the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, I did a Doctor Who themed card and I did the same the year the first Hobbit movie landed. I did Harry Potter and Big Bang Theory because those things were important to us at the respective times. This year was a no-brainer. I'd been wanting to do it for a while, but with the new movie about to burst onto screens across the world I HAD to do Star Wars!

I had the whole range of the Star Wars universe to choose from for our characters, but being the snobby purist that I am, I decided to keep it confined to the original film! After all, it's my favorite movie (and probably always will be for sentimental reasons) and it had a major impact on my life. The first movie will always be MY Star Wars. Anyway, best wishes to everyone for the 2015 holiday season!! Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Solstice and all the rest of the greetings for the winter holidays! ^0^

Brillustrator - Live Event Caricature Entertainer!

Well, I have done my first few events for Live-wires as a Caricature Entertainer! Live event drawing isn't new to me--I've done them many times over the years, of course, (I even did charcoal portraits at the mall during the Christmas Season a couple of years), but these were my first outings with an agency as an "entertainment attraction". LOL No pressure there! Things went really well though. All the experiences were enjoyable and gave me confidence that this is the right direction for me!

One was a company Christmas party for a high-end uptown catering firm, and one was a birthday party with a whole BUNCH of little girls, and I drew them all! The third was another corporate Christmas party, but at a public restaurant. I took some photos of the work, but not many. I ultimately was too busy! But here are few of the sketches I did during those events!

Inktober "DRAWLLOWEEN" Round-Up!

Another Inktober has come and gone! This year, in spite of a week when I was sick as a dog and missed one day entirely, I did pretty well keeping up. Along with a few of my fellow CLAW cartoonists, I followed a "Drawlloween" list that was posted online this year. Each day had a theme and we all drew something to match that theme. The only day I did not do that was October 21, because that was Back to the Future day! (Oct. 21, 2015 was the day that Marty and Doc brown went to 30 years into their future in the second BTTF movie.) That day I did a caricature of Marty and the Doc. But other than that I stuck to the list--although sometimes I tried to be clever with it.

Anyway, here are the highlights of Inktober 2015!



I also did this caricature for "pumpkin" day. Unfortunately I didn't think of the word "Trumpkin" until after I had written the headline on the actual art. Oh well. After I did think of it, I discovered that I wasn't the first to make that association, so it didn't matter anyway.

Terry Pratchett's "The Death of Rats" covered 2 days...the Rat day and the Skeleton day!

I was particularly happy with these two sets of caricatures I did. In addition to the BTTF ones, I drew Samantha and Endora from Bewitched on the day that the Drawlloween calendar selected for "Witches".

Hope you enjoy this selection of my Inktober highlights! I didn't include everything form the month (and probably included more than I should have!) Except for the day I missed while I was sick, most of the drawings were pretty decent...warts and all!

Harpy Holidays! Mwa ha haaaaaa!

Rose City Comicon 2015

So I attended Rose City Comicon in Portland over the weekend and, while I did better in the caricature realm here than I did at Emerald City, it was still pretty lackluster. BUT I did get a few brave souls who wanted to be Brillustrated! The first and hardest group was an entire family dressed as characters from the Disney/Pixar "Inside Out" movie! they really went all out and looked great! I was supposedly only doing black and white caricatures, but since color was so integral to their costumes I couldn't resist adding some. (Naturally I only charged them the B&W price.)

Then I got a father/son team dressed as Indiana Jones and Short Round...but with a twist!

And a chef...or maybe cook, who wanted the obligatory ZOMBIE caricature. He really liked it when it was done!

A couple of friends of mine, who spent a lot of time with us at the con wanted to get caricatures. Mark and Lou are great guys and make a cute couple!

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There were a few other little sketches and one sketch cover that was pretty fun. Sales were light other wise. A few prints here, a couple of sketchbooks there. I had more room at this con and that was a plus, and it was a lot of fun to be there and enjoy the atmosphere and the people. I really enjoy cons, but I need to find a better way to lure in folks to make sales!!